Her Christmas

The difference between men and woman is never more dramatic than the weeks leading up to Christmas. Once Thanksgiving is over, women start the process of planning and preparing for the biggest day of the year. It’s their Super Bowl. This requires a strategic and multi-pronged approach. It can take on the characteristics of a complex military campaign aiming toward a successful landing on Christmas Day. This is a grueling test of a woman’s ability to multi-task. One of the biggest challenges is dealing with the man in their life. This the most dangerous time of the year for our relationships. Men should be very afraid.

My wife, Maureen, is a four star general in conducting a Christmas campaign. It started years ago when our sons were young and her parents would come down from Connecticut for several days over the Christmas holidays. So not only did she have to deal with the stress leading up Christmas, she had to look forward to satisfying her parents expectations of the Norman Rockwell Christmas. That’s a topic for another time. The to-do list is intimidating. Shopping for multiple family members, wrapping and getting many of the gifts shipped out of town in time, writing and mailing Christmas cards, baking cookies, planning dinner, bringing the decorations down from the attic, and decorating the house. There is no time for fooling around. The minute Maureen gets home from work she’s mixing dough, and sliding trays of cookies in and out the oven. Then it’s to the basement, which looks like Santa’s workshop, to wrap the gifts that have to meet a shipping schedule.

So what is the role of the man here? I do have some small responsibilities. Put the lights up outside the house. Buy and put up the Christmas tree. Shop for her Christmas gifts. You have to be ready to do the grunt work, and try to anticipate the needs of the operation. You can help by doing the package shipping runs. Doing the food shopping. There is always a need for more butter, flour, sugar, and holiday sprinkles. Now, I did say shop for her Christmas gifts. Maureen is the only person I shop for. I do make suggestions for gifts for our sons, their wives, our four grand daughters. Some are accepted. Many are rejected. But she is worried about her many cousins and their grandkids, and people at work. Keeping track of this is beyond the capabilities of most men.

There was study done a few years ago by the hotel chain Travelodge in Great Britain about women and Christmas time stress. Forty-two percent of women said hosting Christmas Day was the most stressful job of the year. Forty per cent of women would not trust men to carry out essential Christmas tasks. Eighty-five per cent of women believe men just don’t understand all the work and stress that go into creating that perfect Christmas. But here is the most shocking finding. Thirty-three per cent of the men surveyed thought they could do a better job dealing with Christmas than women! I don’t know where they found these guys, but they’re delusional and dangerous.

The worse thing that could happen to mankind is for women to say, “Okay, you think you can do a better job on Christmas. Go ahead. I’m done!” If you have friends who think this way, and I can’t imagine you do, you need to have an intervention. I don’t know what these guys in Britain were thinking, but we can’t let it spread. Remember, Christmas was made possible by Mary and she didn’t need any help from a man. We need to be grateful if we have someone in our life, and our family’s lives, who works so hard to make us happy. Women have fought for years for equality. Men will never be equal to women when it comes to planning and caring for this holiday. We should be thankful she makes her Christmas for us.